Sex and T.E. Lawrence

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I’m not a very active Wikipedian, but I do put occasional effort into the
entry on
T.E. Lawrence who
is perhaps better known as “Lawrence of Arabia”.
Its coverage of his
sexuality
has been particularly contentious.
This is a research piece designed to
support my work on stabilizing this part of the entry.

[Update, January 8] New citation on masochism.[Update, January 2] Introduce Altounyan opinion and rebrand section as
“Friends’ Opinions”.[Update, December 30] New evidence and some reorganization, but nothing
that changes the story.

Background ·
I fell in love at an early age with Lawrence’s two
major published works,
Seven Pillars
of Wisdom and
The Mint, and have
since read his translations, two volumes of his collected letters, and
multiple biographies.
I consider him one of the most interesting people ever to have walked the
pages of history; of course this perception is aided by his having written up
his own exploits in compelling style.

I think I can claim part of the credit for the initial elevation of the
entry from
a disorganized conspiracy-theory-riddled mess into something at least
basically accurate.

The subject of Lawrence’s sexuality has consumed the corpses of many trees.
Similarly the entry’s
Sexuality
section has been consistently unstable, and subject to considerable
poorly-informed drive-by editing. In Wikipedia, when covering events which
have been much-written about, and where all the protagonists are now gone, it
ought to be able to resolve such disputes by recourse to the historical record
and the core
No
original research and
Verifiability
principles.

I have, to that end, assembled here what I consider to be a reasonably
exhaustive collection of verifiable facts concerning Lawrence’s sexuality,
accompanied by references.

I don’t have copies of two of the key
biographical works (both of which I’ve read), A Prince of Our
Disorder and The Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia.
For the purposes of this essay, I spent an afternoon in public library with
the first.
Some of the citations to them are copied from reference notes in other
works. The citations to the official biography by Jeremy Wilson are by chapter
number, since I have it only in paperback.
I shall eventually get around to more double-checking and updating this
piece if that proves to be required. Having said that, I think the overall
picture is consistent at least in the sense of telling us what
we do and don’t know.

Abstinence ·
There is no reliable evidence for consensual sexual intimacy between
Lawrence and any other person of either gender at any point during his
life, and Lawrence explicitly claimed virginity.

Source: Letter to E.M. Forster, 21 Dec. 1927, in The Letters of T.E. Lawrence, selected and edited by Malcolm Brown;
1988 (“Brown”), p. 360:
(in a homosexual context) “I couldn’t ever do it, I believe: the impulse
strong enough to make me strong enough to make me touch another creature has
not yet been born in me.”

Source: Letter to Robert Graves, 6 Nov. 1928, in Brown, p. 389: “Your last page, about fucking, defeats me wholly. As I
wrote (with some courage, I think: few people admit the damaging ignorance) I
haven’t ever: and don’t much want to.”

Homosexual Relationships? ·
There have been suggestions that Lawrence was involved in at least two
homosexual relationships; his biographers have disputed these.

Source: C. Leonard Woolley in T.E. Lawrence by his Friends,
A.W. Lawrence, editor, p. 89: “The Arabs were tolerantly
scandalized by the friendship, especially when in 1913 Lawrence, stopping in
his house after the dig was over, had Dahoum to live with him and got him to
pose as a model for a queer crouching figure which he carved in the soft local
limestone and set up on the edge of the house roof; to make an image was bad
enough in its way, but to portray a naked figure was proof to them of evil of
another sort. The scandal about Lawrence was widely spread and firmly
believed.” Woolley himself thought the suspicion was unwarranted and
argued this at length in the following text.

Source: Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorized Biography of
T.E. Lawrence, by
Jeremy Wilson (“Wilson”), Chapter 32: “It has been
suggested, by writers who have seen only a small part of the surviving
correspondence between Lawrence and Guy, that the basis of this friendship was
homosexual.”

Source (contesting the first story), Wilson, Chapter 27:
“The account is factually misleading: it is clear from the contemporary
documents that Lawrence spent almost no time on his own at the Carchemish
house, either in June or September 1913, since there was a stream of
visitors. Even without visitors, he would not have been alone there since Haj
Wahid and his family lived in the house permanently...” and so on for several
paragraphs... “Lawrence’s letters from this period bear out this opinion
entirely...”

Source (contesting the second): Wilson, Chapter 32: “None of
the evidence cited as proof of a homosexual affair between Lawrence and Guy
stands up to examination..."

Friends’ Opinions ·
Certain of Lawrence’s friends expressed the opinion that he was more or
less oblivious to sexual feelings.

Source: The Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia by P.G. Knightly and
C. Simpson (“Secrets”) p. 29: “Towards the end of his life [Vyvyan]
Richards [long-time Lawrence collaborator on publishing projects] confessed the true basis for his friendship with Lawrence: ‘Quite
frankly for me it was love at first sight. He had neither flesh nor carnality
of any kind; he just did not understand. He received my affection, my
sacrifice, in fact, eventually my total subservience, as though it was his
due. He never gave the slightest sign that he understood my motives or
fathomed my desires.’”

Source: E.H.R. Altounyan in T.E. Lawrence By His Friends (1937):
“Preoccupation with sex is (except in the defective) due either to a
sense of personal insufficiency and its resultant groping for fulfilment, or
to a real sympathy with its biological purpose. Neither could hold much weight
with him.”

Attitude Towards Homosexuality ·
Despite living in an era in which homosexuality was strongly
disapproved-of officially, Lawrence was never recorded as expressing any
negative feelings about it.

Source: Brown, General Introduction: “... in September 1929 ... Lawrence
wrote of Sigfried Sassoon, fellow officer with Graves in the trenches:
‘S.S. comes out very well. I’m glad of that, for I like him: homosex and
all.’”

Source: Wilson, Chapter 34: [In the context of commenting on
E.M. Forster’s overtly homosexual The Life to Come] “Contrary to
your opinion I incline to consider it quite fit to publish. Perhaps other
people’s improprieties come a little less sharply upon one? It doesn’t feel to
me nearly so bad as my true story.”

Source Seven Pillars features,
prominently on the second page of Chapter I (1935 edition), the following:

“The public women of the
rare settlements we encountered in our months of wandering would have been
nothing to our numbers, even had their raddled meat been palatable to man of
healthy parts. In horror of such sordid commerce our youths began
indifferently to slake one another’s few needs in their own clean bodies—a
cold convenience that, by comparison, seemed sexless and even pure. Later,
some began to justify this sterile process, and swore that friends quivering
together in the yielding sand with intimate hot limbs in supreme embrace,
found there hidden in the darkness a sensual co-efficient of the mental
passion which was welding our souls and spirits in one flaming
effort.”

Source: 1935 Seven Pillars. This version contains a detailed
table of contents, with a summary of each chapter, first in a few paragraphs,
then page-by-page with short textual tags. The following passage in Book
VIII, Chapter XCII, p. 508-509 bears the single-word tag “Sex”:

... One Indian had died of cold, and also Daud, my Ageyli boy, the friend
of Farraj. Farraj himself told me so.

These two had been friends from childhood, in eternal gaiety: working
together, sleeping together, sharing every scrape and profit with the openness
and honesty of perfect love...

When looked at from this torrid East, our British conception of woman
seemed to partake of the northern climate which had also contracted our
faith. In the Mediterranean, woman’s influence and supposed purpose were made
cogent by an understanding in which she was accorded the physical world in
simplicity, unchallenged, like the poor in spirit. Yet this same agreement,
by denying equality of sex, made love, companionship and friendliness
impossible between man and woman. Woman became a machine for muscular
exercise, while man’s psychic side could be slaked only amongst his peers.
Whence arose these partnerships of man and man, to supply human nature with
more than the contact of flesh with flesh.

Source: Letter to Charlotte Shaw, Nov. 6, 1928, cited in
A Prince of Our Disorder
by
John Edward Mack,
1976, (“Mack”), p. 425:
“I’ve seen lots of man-and-man loves: very lovely and fortunate some of them
were.”

Dera’a ·
In both Seven Pillars and a 1919 letter to a military
colleague, Lawrence described an episode in November 1917 in which, while
reconnoitring Dera’a in disguise, he was captured by the Turks, heavily
beaten, and sexually abused by the local Bey and his guardsmen. The precise
nature of the sexual contact was not specified.

Some commentators have
expressed doubt that the episode took place, and there is no independent
evidence, but the multiple consistent reports, and the lack of outright
invention in Lawrence’s works, make his account believable to his
biographers. Mack considers both sides and introduces further independent
evidence in favor of Lawrence’s version, albeit somewhat anecdotal:
description of the treatment of Lawrence’s injuries by junior colleague as
recalled 50 years later.

Source: Letter to W.F. Stirling, Deputy Chief Political Officer, Cairo,
June 28 1919, in Brown, p. 165: “Hajim was an ardent paederast
and took a
fancy to me. So he kept me under guard till night, and then tried to have
me. I was unwilling, and prevailed after some difficulty. Hajim sent me to
the hospital, and I escaped before dawn, being not as hurt as he thought.”

Source: Seven Pillars of Wisdom, both the 1922 and 1935
versions, Book VI, Chapter XXX in 1935 version, 87 in 1922. The accounts in
the two versions vary, but not significantly. This is the 1935 version.

...My plan was to walk around the railway station and town with Faris, and
reach Nisib after sunset. Faris was my best companion for the trip, because
was an insignificant peasant, old enough to be my father, and respectable.

...I was in Halim’s wet things, with a torn Hurani jacket, and was yet
limping from the broken foot acquired when we blew up Jemal’s train...

... Someone called out in Turkish. We walked on deafly, but a sergeant
came after, and took me roughly by the arm, saying ‘The Bey wants you’...

... They took away my belt, and my knife, made me wash myself
carefully... Tomorrow, perhaps, leave would be permitted, if I fulfilled the
Bey’s pleasure this evening. The Bey seemed to be Nahi, the Governor...

...They took me upstairs to the Bey’s room; or to his bedroom, rather. He
was another bulky man, a Circassian himself, perhaps, and sat on the bed in a
night-gown, trembling and sweating as though with fever. When I was pushed in
he kept his head down, and waved the guard out. In a breathless voice he told
me to sit on the floor in front of him, and after that was dumb; while I gazed
at the top of his great head, on which the bristling hair stood up, no longer
than the dark stubble on his cheeks and chin. At last he looked me over, and
told me to stand up; and then to turn round. I obeyed; he flung himself back
on the bed, and dragged me down with him in his arms. When I saw what he
wanted I twisted around and up again, glad to find myself equal to him, at any
rate in wrestling.

He began to fawn on me, saying how white and fresh I was, how fine my hands
and feet, and how he would let me off drills and duties, make me his orderly,
even pay me wages, if I would love him.

I was obdurate, so he changed his tone, and sharply ordered me to take off
my drawers. When I hesitated, he snatched at me; and I pushed him back. He
clapped his hands for the sentry, who hurried in and pinioned me. The Bey
cursed me with horrible threats, and made the man holding me tear my clothes
away, bit by bit. His eyes rounded at the half-healed places where the
bullets had flicked through my skin a little while ago. Finally he lumbered
to his feet, with a glitter in his look, and began to paw me over. I bore it
for a little, till he got too beastly, and then jerked my knee into him.

He staggered to his bed, squeezing himself together and groaning with pain,
while the soldier shouted for the corporal and the other three men to grip me
hand and foot. As soon as I was helpless the Governor regained courage, and
spat at me, searing he would make me ask pardon. He took off his slipper, and
hit me repeatedly with it in the face, while the corporal braced my head back
by the hair to receive the blows. He leaned forward, fixed his teeth in my
neck and bit till the blood came. Then he kissed me. Afterwards he drew one
of the men’s bayonets. I thought he was going to kill me, and was sorry: but
he only pulled up a fold of the flesh over my ribs, worked the point through,
after considerable trouble, and gave the blade a half-turn. This hurt, and I
winced, while the blood wavered down my side, and dripped to the front of my
thigh. He looked pleased and dabbled it over my stomach with his
finger-tips.

In my despair I spoke. His face changed and he stood still, then
controlled his voice with an effort, to say significantly, ‘You must
understand that I know: and it will be easier if you do as I wish’. I was
dumbfounded and we stared silently at one another, while the men who felt an
inner meaning beyond their experience, shifted uncomfortably. But it was
evidently a chance shot, by which he himself, did not, or would not, mean what
I feared. I could not again trust my twitching mouth, which faltered always
in emergencies, so at last threw up my chin, which was the sign for ‘No’ in the
East; then he sat down, and half-whispered to the corporal to take me out and
teach me everything.

They kicked me to the head of the stairs, and stretched me over a
guard-bench, pommelling me. Two knelt on my ankles, bearing down on the back
of my knees, while two more twisted my wrists till they cracked, and then
crushed them and my neck against the wood. The corporal had run downstairs;
and now came back with a whip of the Circassian sort, a thong of supple black
hide, rounded, and tapering from the thickness of a thumb at the grip (which
was wrapped in silver) down to a hard point finer than a pencil.

He saw me shivering, partly I think with cold, and made it whistle over my
ear, taunting me that before his tenth cut I would howl for mercy, and at the
twentieth beg for the caresses of the Bey; and then he began to lash me madly
across and across with all his might, while I locked my teeth to endure this
thing which lapped itself like flaming wire about my body.

To keep my mind in control I numbered the blows, but after twenty lost
count, and could feel only the shapeless weight of pain, not tearing claws,
for which I had prepared, but a gradual cracking apart of my whole being by
some too-great force whose waves rolled up my spine till they were pent within
my brain, to clash terribly together. Somewhere in the place a cheap clock
ticked loudly, and it distressed me that their beating was not in its time. I
writhed and twisted, but was held so tightly that my struggles were useless.
After the corporal ceased, the men took up, very deliberately, giving me so
many, and then an interval, during which they would squabble for the next
turn, ease themselves, and play unspeakably with me. This was repeated often,
for what may have been no more than ten minutes. Always for the first of a
new series, my head would be pulled round, to see how a hard white ridge, like
a railway, darkening slowly into crimson, leaped over my skin at the instant
of each stroke, with a bead of blood where two ridges crossed. As the
punishment proceed the whip fell more and more upon existing weals, biting
blacker or more wet till my flesh quivered with accumulated pain, and with
terror of the next blow coming. They soon conquered my determination not to
cry, but while my will ruled my lips I used only Arabic, and before the end a
merciful sickness choked my utterance.

...

I remembered the corporal kicking with his nailed boot to get me up;
and this was true, for next day my right side was dark and lacerated, and a
damaged rib made each breath stab me sharply. I remembered smiling idly at
him, for a delicious warmth, probably sexual, was swelling through me: and
then that he flung up his arm and hacked with the full length of his whip into
my groin. This doubled me half-over, screaming, or rather trying impotently
to scream, only shuddering through my open mouth. One giggled with
amusement. A voice cried ‘Shame, you’ve killed him’. Another slash
followed. A roaring, and my eyes went black: while within me the core of life
seemed to heave slowly up through the rending nerves, expelled from its body
by this last indescribable pang.

... Then Nahi called. They splashed water in my face, wiped off some of
the filth, and lifted me between them, retching and sobbing for mercy, to
where he lay: but he now rejected me in haste, as a thing too torn and bloody
for his bed, blaming their excess of zeal which had spoilt me: whereas no
doubt they had laid into me much as usual, and the fault rested mainly upon my
indoor skin, which gave way more than an Arab’s.

So the crestfallen corporal, as the youngest and best-looking of the guard,
had to stay behind...

The subject of what sort of sexual contact took place has been much
discussed. Several biographers assume that actual intercourse (presumably
oral or anal) took place and refer to the incident using the word “rape”.

A letter from Lawrence to Charlotte Shaw of March 26, 1924
(Brown, p. 261-2) is often quoted, in which Lawrence writes: “For
instance my night in Deraa. Well, I’m always afraid of being hurt: and to me,
while I live, the force of that night will lie in the agony which broke me,
and made me surrender.”

Malcolm Brown considers a letter from Lawrence from E.M. Forster, of
Dec. 21st, 1927, conclusive; see his footnote on p. 359. Forster had sent
Lawrence a copy of his short
story Doctor Woolacott, which was published only posthumously (in
the collection The Life to Come, and other stories) because of
its homosexual theme. In the letter Lawrence writes “The Turks, as you probably
know (or have guessed, through the reticences of the Seven
Pillars) did it to me, by force”.
Brown’s conclusion may be true but Doctor
Woolacott doesn’t offer much support; while the
relationship is clearly homosexual, it is a dying man’s fantasy relationship
with a possibly-real ghost; no physical interaction beyond kissing and
embracing is specified.

Finally, Lawrence himself claimed explicitly that the Turkish commander had
failed to achieve sexual intimacy him.
He describes the guardsmen’s during the subsequent whipping thus:
(in the 1922 text) “The men were very deliberate, giving me so many, and then
taking an interval, during which they would squabble for the next turn, ease
themselves, play a little with me, and pull my head round to see their work.”
(in the 1935 text) “After the corporal ceased, the men took up, very
deliberately, giving me so many, and then an interval, during which they would
squabble for the next turn, ease themselves, and play unspeakably with
me.”

The OED reports that to “ease oneself” generally
refers to defecation (supported, interestingly, by a quotation from
Seven Pillars).

Clearly this is sexual abuse, but the details are unlikely ever to
surface, and there is room for argument about “rape”.
Lawrence’s admission immediately afterward in this text, of feeling, during a
lull in the abuse, a
“delicious warmth, probably sexual, swelling through me” might plausibly
constitute the “surrender” of which he wrote to Mrs. Shaw.

Masochism ·
There is considerable evidence that Lawrence was a masochist. In
describing the Dera’a beating, Lawrence writes “a delicious warmth, probably
sexual, was swelling through me”.

In later life, Lawrence arranged to pay a military colleague to administer
regular beatings to him, and to be subjected to severe formal tests of
fitness and stamina.

Source, for Dera’a: see narrative above.

Source, more on Dera’a: Secrets, p. 221: “The significance of
the Deraa incident, whether true or false, is that it provides a classical
example of a situation
in which sexual pleasure flooding the whole body happens in a response to the
infliction of both pain and humiliation. Lawrence’s description of the
Circassian riding whip, with its ‘single thongs of supple black hide, rounded,
and tapering from the thickness of a thumb at the grip (which was wrapped in
silver, with a knob inlaid in black designs) down to a hard point much finer
than a pencil’ is typical of the masochist’s preoccupation with details of the
instruments of his punishment, and is well recognized in the literature on the
subject. The conclusion seems inescapable that Lawrence did indeed experience
abnormal reactions to pain and its infliction, and was well aware of the
sexual connotations of this, and that accompanying these reactions was an
inner drive towards degradation and abasement.”

Source, for beatings and so on: John Bruce, Sunday Times of
June 23, 1968, discussed in Wilson, Chapter 34. Wilson points
out that some of Bruce’s claims were not credible, but acknowledges there is
independent evidence for the beatings.

Mack and Brown both argue that the later-life masochism is in some part a
symptom of psychological trauma following on his abuse at Dera’a.

Mack cites conversations with Lawrence’s brother, his correspondence, and
also conversation with an unidentified colleague who witnessed one of the
beatings:
“The companion observed three beatings with a metal whip between 1931 and
1934. They were brutal, delivered on the bare buttocks, and a precise number
of lashes was required. Lawrence submitted to them ‘like a schoolboy,’
registered obvious fear and agony, but did not scream or cry out. He required
that the beatings be severe enough to produce a seminal emission.”
p. 433.

S.A. ·
The dedication to Seven Pillars is entitled “To S.A.” and
takes the form of a poem which opens as follows:

I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands
and wrote my will across the sky in stars
To earn you Freedom, the seven pillared worthy house
that your eyes might be shining for me
When we came.

[“When I came.” in the 1922 text.]

The identity of “S.A.” has never been established; there are many theories,
the most popular of which is that S.A. refers to Dahoum, referenced above,
whose name was “Salim Ahmed” and also referred to himself as “Sheikh
Ahmed”.

For an exhaustive study of the theories and evidence concerning “S.A.”, see
An ‘S.A.’ Mystery, by
Yagitani Ryōko.

What I Think ·
Yes, I know that this is supposed to be a research piece, but hey, it’s
also a blog. It seems obvious to me, as a person who has read nearly
everything there is by or about Lawrence, and based not only on this material
but on a bunch of other intangibles, that he was gay but didn’t do much
about it. No, I won’t try to insert that opinion into Wikipedia.

Updated: 2009/12/20

Contributions

I read the Seven Pillars of Wisdom in college, lo these many years ago. One particular detail stuck with me: Lawrence described everything vividly, recounting very small details of his surroundings, the meals he had eaten, the clothes people wore.

About 2/3rds of the way through the book, after describing the events of several years, he mentioned in passing that his notes had been destroyed. He apologized that everything up until this point had been reconstructed from memory, and the rest of the book would have the benefit of his notes.

I detected no difference in the former and latter sections of the work. Clearly, Lawrence was possessed of an astonishing memory, probably eidactic.

I see little evidence that T.E. Lawrence ever fabricated in his written works. He had little need to. He led a hugely eventful life, and his mind provided more details than could possibly be included in a book.

Superb work Tim. I believe it must be transferred to the talk page so to open a wider discussion in order to finalize a text based upon these refs. In general I don't believe that he was enough bold & honest to admit a masochistic sexual pleasure during the beating while he was unable to admit a gay desire. But as you also say that's only my personal opinion & counts only as such.

A wonderful piece on a fascinating character. Just from this I get the impression that Lawrence was more Asexual than he was Hetero/Homo/Bi or any combination therof. Most of what I have read about his sexuality seems to be stretching him into Gay, but I think this is because we are mostly under the fallacy that you have to be something, and asexual seems improbable to most of us. There are those who are, and they are all under some considerable social pressure to be something, so a little dabling here and there is to be expected.

I really appreciate your sensitive and thorough treatment, Tim! One of my frustrations of contemporary sexual politics is it's so reductive. People are in such a rush to classify everyone as "homosexual" and "heterosexual" that they miss the real nuances of people's sexual lives. It's a shame we have so little primary information on Lawrence, but reality is often ambiguous.

I am an amateur TEL buff who has read about everything I can get my eyes on about this most fascinating man. I had hoped by reading his letters I could get a handle on him - but nada! And trying to decipher what really happened at Dara'a will likely be a forever unsolved mystery. But I do think your analysis of TEL's sexual identity is one the better write-ups I've run into. Thanks for taking time and energy to enlighten us.